The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Background

On July 31, 2014, it was announced that Lorde would provide a single for the film's soundtrack album and curate the record. The track list for the soundtrack was released on October 21, 2014. Details of the fifth track were confirmed on November 3, 2014.

As the album's curator, Lorde recruited Grace Jones, Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon, Diplo, Miguel, The Chemical Brothers, Charli XCX, Stromae, Major Lazer and Ariana Grande to contribute to the official track list. In an interview with Billboard, she stated that her "idol", Kanye West, had made a remix of the album's first single, "Yellow Flicker Beat" which would appear on the track list.

On December 3, 2014, the soundtrack was re-released digitally with "The Hanging Tree" by James Newton Howard featuring Jennifer Lawrence as the fifteenth song on the album. The song was originally released on the score.

"Yellow Flicker Beat" and "The Hanging Tree" are the only songs on the album to be used in the film.

Release and promotion

The soundtrack was released on the Australian and New Zealand iTunes store on November 14 and was released worldwide through Republic Records on November 17, 2014. on October 21, 2014, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 soundtrack was revealed. There was a mystery track titled "Track 5" recorded by "Various Artists." However, the track was not intended to be a secret, as Lorde quickly explained on Twitter: "the unnamed track isn't that way because of secrecy's sake - it's just not quite finished."

Singles

On September 22, 2014, Lorde posted a photo of the single cover titled "Yellow Flicker Beat", which was released on September 29, 2014. It peaked at No. 34 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and entered the record charts of several nations, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The song has received a nomination for Best Original Song at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards.

After the success of "The Hanging Tree", composed by James Newton Howard and featuring vocals from Jennifer Lawrence, as part of the score for the film, the soundtrack was re-released digitally with "The Hanging Tree" as the fifteenth track. Six days later, "The Hanging Tree" was released as the second single from the album. Before it was released as a single, "The Hanging Tree" debuted at No. 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending December 13, 2014, currently becoming the highest charting song from any of the soundtracks from The Hunger Games films on the chart. It sold 200,000 digital copies that week. The former highest charting song from The Hunger Games trilogy of films on the Hot 100 is "Eyes Open" by Taylor Swift from the 2012 film The Hunger Games, which peaked at No. 19.

Promotional singles

There are three promotional singles were released. The first one was "This Is Not a Game" by The Chemical Brothers featuring Miguel, the second was "Dead Air" by CHVRCHES. "Flicker (Kanye West Rework)" was released as the third promotional single for the album on November 11, 2014. The song "Lucifer" by XOV was meant to be one of the promotional singles for the soundtrack, but it was considered too "dark" so it didn't appear on the soundtrack. It was replaced by "Animal".

Critical reception

Pitchfork Media gave the album a 7.8, stating: “Across the board, the songs sound like threads of hope escaping gloomier pasts, echoing the arc of the film’s generational heroine. It’s no coincidence that, of the 14 songs featured on Mockingjay, 11 feature female vocalists in the foreground.” Billboard gave the soundtrack a positive review calling Lorde’s work “stellar”: “Thanks to her vision, and her grip on the series’ most important thematic elements, the 50 minutes of music behind Mockingjay Part 1 ably function as both a glance at 2014′s finest purveyors of complex, downcast pop and a complement to the start of the series’ chaotic, brutal conclusion.” Spin ranked all 14 tracks, with "This Is Not a Game" topping their list: “Much like the British production duo’s overlooked score from the 2011 thriller, Hanna, ‘Game’ tells its own story in three minutes, and sets a new bar for what soundtracks can and should be doing in terms of balancing story with songwriting, and Lorde’s part in it shouldn’t be overlooked. After all, like the movie preaches, even the quietest voices can spark a change.”

New York Daily News gave the album a mixed review stating it was too slow at times: “It throws echo around everything and lets dense, ambient sound creep over the voices and instruments. It’s supposed to create a sense of wariness and foreboding, but often it just makes things sound murky and diffuse. Despite bright spots, long stretches bore.”